


Never Did I Think That I Would Be Caught In the Way You Caught Me

by smolqueernerds



Category: The Ever Afters Series - Shelby Bach
Genre: Hopelessly In Love With Rory Landon Support Group, Kyle Zipes/Lancer Davis (mentioned), Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:56:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6192274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolqueernerds/pseuds/smolqueernerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It only takes one kiss to turn everything you thought you knew upside down and backwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Did I Think That I Would Be Caught In the Way You Caught Me

This is how it happens:  
They’re sitting in a cafe and Lena is talking about her latest experiment and Rory’s phone beeps with a text from Chase; Grifns in park off crnr of wst and main, meet me when u can (like now pls)  
Rory gives Lena an apologetic smile, turning the phone around so she can read the text, and Lena gives her a nod of it’s-okay-go-do-your-thing in return, wincing slightly at Chase’s grammar as usual, and Rory stands up and says “Bye, darling” and leans over the table to kiss Lena.  
Her lips taste like cinnamon and coffee, and Rory freezes, and Lena freezes, and Rory runs, and Lena stays, and they’re both wondering what the fudge just happened.  
Rory runs up and down and across five blocks but her heart is pounding before she breaks a sweat, and when she gets to the park, to Chase, he flashes her a smile and yells at her to come on, you’re missing all the action and they stand back to back with swords up and slashing until the ground is covered in blood and feathers. It’s like usual, like nothing ever happened.  
Rory grabs a fistful of his shirt when they’re done and pulls him in and kisses him. This is what she knows; the cowlicks in his hair, the muscles in his arms, the chocolate on his breath. This is what she wants; his heart thundering in his chest, his arms holding her strong and safe, his voice whispering her name like she’s the thing that keeps his world spinning. This is what she loves; fighting and playing and laughing and loving with him by her side.   
She breathes him in and tells herself that this is where home is, where her heart is.   
After all, your heart’s last home is always one place, one person, one love. Right?

Lena sits, frozen, two fingers on her lips, and then she gets up and walks out and calls a cab and over-tips the driver when she steps out to her front door and heads up to her bedroom to call her ex-boyfriend.  
She split with Kyle almost a year ago when she saw the way he looked at Lancer Davis and realized that she didn’t hurt at all; they’re almost on better terms now than they were. He doesn’t help her with experiments as often, but they talk more, about anything and everything.  
She tells him about the kiss in a few sentences, unusually short ones for her, because words can’t express the details her memory has captured; the way Rory’s hair fell in a cloud around them both, the way Rory’s eyes looked before the kiss, bright and aware and how she’s so sure, absolutely almost, that it didn’t just happen because Rory lost focus and thought she was kissing Chase, the way it felt so natural like they’d done it a hundred times before and all the times had slipped her mind until now.   
“Do you like her, Lena?”  
Lena is sprawled diagonally across her bed, shoes kicked to the far corner of her room, staring out the window like she’s going to see something important. “Kyle, no one says ‘do you like so-and-so’ anymore. We’re not twelve.”  
“Fine, then. Do you love her?”  
“Of course I do.” Lena rolls over and tries to find the meaning of life in her ceiling tiles. “She’s my best friend.”  
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”  
“Yeah.”  
Wouldn’t she be jealous, if she were in love? Jealous of Rory and Chase? She likes them together, likes the way they fit. She’s not as close to Chase as she is to Rory, never will be, but she’s happy he got together with her.  
Does she like girls?   
Does Rory like girls?  
If Rory liked girls, would she like Rory?  
Speculation is useless. Answers are found in empirical data.   
Question: Do I like Rory?  
Background research: The Kiss.  
Hypothesis: Jacqueline Lamarelle is romantically attracted to Aurora Landon.  
How do you plan to test your hypothesis?  
“I need to gather data,” Lena says.  
“That sounds like it could be a really bad idea,” Kyle warns.  
Lena hangs up. 

Chase’s phone buzzes and he pulls it out to see a text from Kyle; If you’re alone, call me.  
He pushes 4 on his speed dial and when he hears the click of someone picking up, he says without preamble, “Dude, way to not sound like a total creep.”  
“I need to tell you something,” Kyle says, his voice low and worried.  
“What’s up?”  
“I’m probably totally betraying Lena’s trust or something by telling you this but---”  
“Whoa, slow down,” Chase interrupts. “How about you decide whether or not you need to tell me this before we talk? And I don’t want to know about Lena’s personal stuff if it doesn’t involve me.”  
“But it could involve you. Big time.”  
Chase hesitates, his conscience and his curiosity warring in the pit of his stomach. “Fine. Go ahead.”  
“Rory kissed Lena today.”   
The world falls out from under Chase’s feet and he’s left standing in the eternal abyss with nothing but a cellphone.   
“Rory kissed Lena,” he repeats. The words are foreign ones. Meaningless.  
“Like, on the lips. Not platonically, at least according to Lena. But maybe she misinterpreted it, I’m getting this all secondhand---”  
“You shouldn’t have told me this,” Chase says.  
“I know. I’m sorry.”  
“I’m sorry too.”   
Chase hangs up and looks out to where Rory is standing in the parking lot, loading a mostly intact griffin carcass into the trunk of his car because Lena will want the feathers for experiments. Somehow, it’s a beautiful scene; her hair tinged with gold in the dimming sunlight, her sleek muscles flexing as she tries to find a good grip on its feathered hide. In a blood-spattered sweatshirt and torn jeans, she’s the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. She’s so real that the world around her, the world before her, fades to a dream.  
He sticks his phone in the back pocket of his jeans and walks across the field to help her shove the body into the trunk, folding its wings down so they’ll fit under the roof.   
“Thanks for the hand,” she says, turning to face him, smiling. He’s memorized a million of her smiles, the curves of her mouth and the crinkles around her eyes. He could memorize a million more and never get tired.  
He closes the trunk with one hand and says, “Lena.”  
“What about Lena?” she asks, and her voice trembles, and it betrays her, and she knows that he knows. Her gaze drops to the ground. “Who told you?”  
“Doesn’t matter,” Chase says. “Come on.”   
He takes her hand and leads her across the green and they sit beneath the branches of a sycamore.  
“Are you going to break up with me?” Rory asks, and he can already see her trying not to cry.  
“Never,” he says. “I thought you’d break up with me, if anything.”  
“I love you,” she says, and he doesn’t doubt her, and that lifts a weight from his heart.  
“Do you love her like you love me?”  
“Maybe. I don’t know.”  
“You probably need to find out.”  
She buries her face in her hands and goes “arrrrgh” and he can’t help finding it adorable.  
“Do you want to talk about it?” Chase asks.  
Rory looks at him. “Are you seriously willing to hear me talk about kissing my other, more female best friend felt?”  
“If it helps you.”  
So she tells him about Lena’s eyelashes brushing her cheek and the warmth of her skin and how their noses bumped just a little and it wasn’t like kissing him at all but it was because---  
“You know how you like cake, and you like cookies, and they’re different things but they both give you a sugar rush?” Rory asks. “It was like that.”  
“Am I the cake or the cookies in that analogy?” Chase wonders.  
“Does it matter?”  
“Obviously.”  
“...I don’t even know.”  
“I want to be cake, then.”  
“Fine.” Rory looks up at him, her face shadowed by the leaves overhead. “Why aren’t you mad at me?”  
“You love me,” he answers. “That’s all I want. I want to love you and be loved in return and as long as we have that, Rory, you can love whoever you want, whoever makes you happy. Whatever gender they are, however many of them there are - I couldn’t care less. I can make room in my life for them, as long as they don’t take my food.”  
Rory hugs him hard enough to crack a rib or two. “God, I love you so much.”  
“I know.” Chase pulls back to study her face for a moment. “I think you need to call Lena.”  
“I don’t have my cell phone.”  
“Here.” He digs his phone out of his pocket and slaps it in her hand. “Call her. Not text. This is a calling situation.”  
“What do I say?”  
“Do you honestly expect me to tell you that?”  
She grumbles a little as she hits #2 on Chase’s speed dial and the phone starts to ring.

Lena is starting to reconsider the merits of empirical data.  
It sounded eminently sensible three hours ago, particularly when she was still flushed with the memory of Rory’s lips on hers. But at seven-thirty PM, after two missed calls from Kyle, three cups of green tea and four hours of actually sitting down to think about this, the situation seems to call for math over science.   
The statistical chance of Jacqueline LaMarelle and Aurora Landon entering into a successful romantic relationship in any capacity is unacceptably unlikely when compared to the chance of ruining the long-established LaMarelle-Landon friendship by attempting to initiate any sort of romantic encounter in the hopes of gathering data.  
Scenario with the highest chance of success: forget it ever happened.  
Lena is about 70% sure that this is the best course of action when her cell phone rings.  
It’s Chase’s number on the display and her heart drops into her stomach thinking oh god he knows but she has to face the music so she bites the inside of her cheek and answers.  
“Hey Chase, what’s---”  
“Lena?”  
The voice on the other end leaves Lena suddenly breathless.  
“R-rory?”  
“Yeah. Listen, can we talk? I mean, can I come over and we can talk about - things?”  
“Sure,” Lena says, trying to sound nonchalant. “That’s fine.”  
(Nononononothingisfine)  
“Can I come over now? I can be there in ten---”  
“Okay.”  
(thisisdefinitelynotokay)  
“Alright, see you soon.”  
“See you. Bye.”  
(thisisgoingtobehowIdie, Iwillhaveaheartattackrighthereandnow)  
The phone clicks off.  
Lena collapses onto the couch.   
In her mind, a gear turns. With a clunking noise, things shift into place, and suddenly she’s watching a fast-forward montage all made up of Rory, fighting and dancing and blushing and laughing; Rory defending her, taking care of her when she’s sick, telling her she believes in her, hugging her close.  
Rory Landon is not the first girl she has ever liked - she can see that now, see the faces of pretty girls she never knew she wasn’t supposed to look at like that - but she is the first girl she has ever loved.   
There’s one of her questions answered, at least.  
The others will have to wait.  
Lena stands up on legs that no longer shake and heads to the bathroom. She splashes her face with cold water, breathes deeply, rubs feeling back into her arms and face.   
The doorbell rings.  
Waiting on the step is Rory, hair tousled, clothes bloody, face gorgeous. “Hey,” she says, and her smile looks like dawn breaking.  
“Hey.” Lena steps aside to let her in, heart thudding with her sudden hyperawareness of her best friend. “That’s not your blood, I hope?”  
“Nah. All griffin.” Rory moves to sit down on the sofa, like she’s done a million times before, but stops herself. Awkward tension hovers in the air between them, and Lena feels like a kid with her first crush.   
“So what did you want to talk about?” Lena asks, like she doesn’t already know. It occurs to her that she should have spent the time before Rory’s arrival thinking of what the hiccups she could actually say to her.  
“I think you kind of have an idea of that.” Rory takes a step closer to her, and then another. Lena’s mouth is going dry, but she doesn’t mind it. The space between them feels charged. She’s not nearly as scared of this as she should be.  
“I guess I do.” Lena swallows before asking the first thing that she wants to know, even though there’s a thousand meanings her words could have. “Was it a mistake?”  
Rory’s lips pucker and twist in thought. (She probably shouldn’t be staring at Rory’s lips.) “I don’t think it was,” she admits finally, eyes meeting Lena’s and then flicking away. Lena realizes that Rory is nervous, maybe as nervous as she is. She hasn’t seen Rory nervous since they defeated Solange.  
“Do you regret it?” Lena’s the one that moves closer this time. There are so many colors in Rory’s eyes, and she wants to name them all, pinpoint their places on the spectrum.  
“No.” Rory is looking at Lena like she’s something she’s never seen before. “Do you?”  
“No.” It’s a denial of one thing and an affirmation of something else.  
It doesn’t matter who says “Do you want to...?” and it doesn’t matter who replies “Yes.” They are almost the same mind in two bodies now, thoughts echoing back and forth between them.  
This is what I wanted  
This is what I was looking for  
How did I not see this?  
Why didn’t I realize?  
This is what’s supposed to happen  
This is how it always had to go  
This is all I want  
This is what I need   
I love you   
There is a sudden honk from a car horn, and then a sudden shout from outside. “Rory, are you done yet? I want to go out for ice cream!”  
“Shut up, Chase!” Rory yells, but she’s grinning slightly, and her cheeks are rosy. She looks at Lena. “Um...do you want ice cream?”  
“I always want ice cream,” Lena says gently, “but I kind of doubt Chase was inviting me.”  
“LENA!” Another, louder blast on the horn. “TELL OUR GIRLFRIEND THAT THE ICE CREAM SHOP CLOSES AT EIGHT FIFTEEN!”  
Rory raises an eyebrow, grinning wider. “Still think you’re not invited?”  
Our girlfriend. Chase knows, then. He knows and he’s fine with it.   
Lena’s world has never been this full of possibility.   
“Let’s go.”

They run to the curb and pile into the front seat of Chase’s Camaro after a brief argument over seating. Rory pulls Lena into her lap and instead of protesting Lena just buckles their shared seatbelt and they take off, bouncing over potholes.  
Rory almost doesn’t want to get up when they arrive at the ice cream shop; she likes this position too much, but when Lena smiles down at her she remembers that this doesn’t have to be a one time thing, all of this can happen again and again and again, and her heart swells like a balloon.   
They order their ice cream (black cherry for Rory, mint chip for Lena, double chocolate for Chase). When it comes, the girls want to eat it inside but Chase insists he has a better idea. Back to the car they go, cradling their double-scoop cones so as to keep ice cream from dripping onto the seats. Chase drives with one hand; Rory and Lena can barely balance without smearing ice cream all over each other. It’s ridiculous and inefficient and awkward and terrible and somehow the funnest thing Rory’s ever done.  
They finally stop at a park at the corner of West and Main, the same park where Rory was killing griffins and having kissing crises just a few hours ago. Already it’s a little strange to think that there was a time when life didn’t seem this easy. Things she didn’t even know were wrong are suddenly right and it feels like waking up from a bad dream.  
They unbuckle and head out through the long grass and watch the long, slow sunset as they devour their frozen treats. Lena’s head is on Rory’s shoulder, Chase’s arm around her waist.   
Once the sun is down, the cones crunched to bits, they cuddle into each other for body warmth. Chilled, sticky kisses are exchanged until Rory can taste cherry and mint and chocolate all together. This is what love tastes like, she thinks, and she presses her lips to Lena’s forehead, then Chase’s. Her scientist and her warrior; two loves, different and strong. There’s still so much to figure out, but they can do it all together.  
The stars shine down on them, and the first chapter of a new story draws to a close.


End file.
